


On Wanting

by gluecklich (roachprince)



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Kaisoo is endgame, M/M, Mafia relations, Pining, This is super sad, death and yelling and tears, i like tao i swear, nobody ever asks kyungsoo how he's doing, short hint at suicide but nobody actually does it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-11
Updated: 2015-10-13
Packaged: 2018-04-25 22:12:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4978480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roachprince/pseuds/gluecklich
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kyungsoo's crush on his best friend's boyfriend doesn't get any easier when everything around him derails.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Vom Wollen und nicht Kriegen](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/149830) by gluecklich (me). 



> This was my second Exo fic because I seriously needed the drama. It's originally posted on FF.de, so it used to be German, and I translated it. So if it's wonky here and there, you know why. If you find any actual mistakes though feel free to tell me.

He still remembers the first time he saw him. Sehun introduced him to them, like a proud son to his parents. Kyungsoo already feels like the dad of their friend group often enough, he’s where they go to with their problems, and both Sehun and Tao have enough of those. He likes them, for some reason, he just wishes they’d be less stupid. Why exactly they always come to him with their little ailments he sincerely doesn’t know. Because he keeps his mouth shut, probably, and because he gives honest answers, even if they don’t always want to hear them.

Between all that, meeting Jongin was a blessing, an oasis in the middle of a desert full of troubled boys and everyday problems that went out of control. He just appeared, next to Sehun, with his hand in his own, and grinned and made jokes and promised he’d take good care of Sehun. And Kyungsoo believed him. God, he’d probably believe everything he says. Jongin could look him right in the eyes and say the sky is green and clouds are made of bacon and Kyungsoo would just smile and nod.

He still remembers he didn’t notice at first. He thought Jongin was nice and was happy for him and Sehun because they seemed like a cute couple, and for a long time he thought that was all.

The clearest memory perhaps is the moment he suddenly understood everything. The four of them were at a café and Kyungsoo was watching Jongin take sips from his cup and glance at Sehun and laugh at his story, the way his eyes scrunched up when he did that, and how beautiful his mouth looked, and how cute he looked when he was having fun. And he felt perfectly normal, until Jongin caught him and looked at him and raised his brows and asked, in an amused tone, if there was something stuck to his face or why he was staring at him like that, and Kyungsoo had to grin and wave his hand around dismissively and go back to his sandwich and quietly come to terms with what he had just realized.

He had a crush on his best friend’s boyfriend.

It hasn’t gotten any better since.

Sehun is still dating Jongin, and Kyungsoo still thinks he’s too perfect to even set foot on this Earth. At night he wonders how their lips would feel on each other, and his skin under Kyungsoo’s fingertips, he wonders how his hair smells and how his voice sounds when he has just woken up, and he wonders how he even still manages to look Sehun in the eyes. He thinks Sehun doesn’t deserve an angel like Jongin, but he knows that the same goes for him. Sometimes he wishes Jongin had never gotten to know them all, but then the next day they meet up again and Jongin’s smile saves Kyungsoo’s entire day and makes him believe everything will be alright somehow.

At least he’s pretty sure Sehun doesn’t know. Which doesn’t surprise him. Sehun’s very busy with caring about himself, and it’s not like Kyungsoo is known for openly displaying his emotions. He keeps it inside and really just waits for it to blow over, and maybe that’s the reason Sehun is sitting on his bed right now, once again, and pours his heart out to him.

Kyungsoo’s face stays completely still while Sehun tells him he’s got relationship issues. Honestly he doesn’t know what to think of it. Don’t jump to any conclusions, he tells himself, and if they do break up he can’t just go and tackle Jongin, that would be disrespectful and unfair. He’s just sitting there with his legs crossed, watching Sehun struggle with himself.

“I don’t know what to do,” he whines, and shoots him a helpless glance which Kyungsoo returns blankly. “How do _you_ break up with people?”

“I usually just kill them and bury them in the backyard,” Kyungsoo says dryly.

“That what happened to Baekhyun?”

“No, that one I fed to Tao’s dogs.”

Something vaguely resembling a smile ghosts over Sehun’s face, but disappears quickly. Sehun runs both hands through his hair. “He didn’t do anything wrong, you know,” he says. “Jongin’s great, the relationship’s great, but I… I don’t know. It doesn’t work anymore.”

“Why not?” Kyungsoo asks.

Sehun mumbles an answer that Kyungsoo doesn’t catch, so he leans forward and slaps the back of his head.

_“Ow!”_

“Dude, speak up.”

Sehun sighs, then looks out the window. “I fell for someone else,” he says.

“Did you cheat on him?” It’s hard to not get angry at the thought of Sehun betraying Jongin, but the dumbfounded look on Sehun’s face helps.

“No! No, I’m not that horrible. But that’s why I should break up with him, I can’t stay with him and like someone else, that’s not helping anyone.”

Kyungsoo makes a pensive sound. “Who’d you fall in love with?”

“Tao,” says Sehun. Kyungsoo laughs. Sehun glares at him and kicks both of his shins, which works terribly well thanks to Kyungsoo’s crossed legs. Kyungsoo kicks back but misses because he’s still fighting with his own laughter.

“Are you serious?” he asks, barely controlling his voice. “Tao? _Our_ Tao? Who doesn’t shower after sundown because ghosts might find him?”

“Shut up,” Sehun hisses. “He’s cute and I… Dunno. The more time I spend with him the worse it gets. I wish I didn’t have to leave Jongin, he doesn’t deserve that, I mean, but I get those stupid butterflies with Tao now and not with him, and it all sucks, and – hey, are you listening to me?”

Instead of looking at him Kyungsoo just gleefully glances out the window. He likes Sehun, alright, he really does, but after all those sleepless nights thanks to him and Jongin, it feels it a little too good to see him like that. Also he doesn’t get how anyone could crush on Tao, but that’s another story. “Sure,” he answers, a little delayed, and looks back at him. “You have to break up with Jongin.”

“I know.” Sehun sighs. “But I don’t know how. Can’t I just, like, hire someone to seduce him, so I can catch him cheating on me and leave him for that?”

For a moment, Kyungsoo just looks at him. “Of course you can,” he says. “But I’m sure it’d be less work to just pull your head out of your ass. What the fuck, Sehun.”

“Just a thought,” Sehun mutters.

“You’re stupid”, Kyungsoo determines, while Sehun falls on his back and rubs at his eyes with both hands.

“ _You’re_ stupid.”

“At least I don’t fall in love with Tao.”

“Yeah, you wouldn’t. ‘Course not. You’d fall in love with people like Satan or the dude from _Saw_.”

Kyungsoo snorts, and nods with a dry laugh, even though his chest hurts a little. “Right,” he says, and doesn’t know what’s bitterer. Sehun thinking Tao is way more innocent than he actually is? Maybe. Kyungsoo, in reality, falling in love with people that are actual angels walking the Earth and making glaciers melt with their smile? Definitely.

  


When Sehun leaves, he still doesn’t quite know what to do. Luckily Kyungsoo has no idea that this is why he makes a beeline for Tao’s place.

  


A few days later he’s back at Kyungsoos apartment door. He’s out of breath because he took the stairs. He thought physical effort might help him calm down, but it didn’t work. He keeps pressing the doorbell until the door opens and Kyungsoo’s standing in front of him, looking like he wants to strangle him with his own intestines.

“I have so many problems,” Sehun breathes.

For a moment he just looks like he’s about to close the door. Sehun remembers it’s almost midnight and he might have woken him up. But he also remembers the horrible feeling he had in his stomach while walking the dark streets alone, and he remembers Tao and Jongin and all the shit he’s in neck-deep now.

Kyungsoo rubs the bridge of his nose with two fingers, then quietly takes a step to the side to let Sehun in.

“I kissed Tao,” Sehun says once they’re back on the bed Kyungsoo just rose from. “Or he kissed me? I don’t know. We –”

“Break up with Jongin,” Kyungsoo says.

Sehun presses his lips into a tight line, sighs, stops talking. He stares towards the window before he notices that Kyungsoo has pulled the blinds. Then he just stares at the floor instead.

“That’s,” he says, “not all of it.” He pauses, maybe for dramatic effect, maybe just because he feels stupid. Kyungsoo doesn’t say anything. But he can feel his stare. Sehun has to pull himself together to return it. He doesn’t know where to start. Or how. He thinks about how he told Jongin that Kyungsoo is _special_ , before he introduced him to his friends. “He’s, like, three feet tall, but he always looks like a hitman,” he said. “Back in school rumor had it he’s with the mafia.” Jongin raised his brows when he didn’t continue, and Sehun shrugged. “Personally I don’t believe it,” he said. “Kyungsoo never confirmed it. I mean, he never denied it either, but that’s probably just for show – the shit you gotta do to compensate when you’re this short.”

His own words resonate in his ears. Sehun takes a quiet breath. “That stupid rumor in the past,” he begins, and tries to snort to act like he still thinks it’s ridiculous, but it won’t come out. “Was that true?” he asks instead. “Are you… somehow involved with gangs?”

Nothing moves in Kyungsoo’s face. “What did Tao tell you?” he asks.

“Tell me,” Sehun repeats. His throat releases a laugh that doesn’t sound like him. “He didn’t tell me much at all. Most of it he showed me. Or all of it. I don’t know. But you know, don’t you? You knew all of this. Shit, Kyungsoo, did you know?”

Kyungsoo stays quiet for several seconds. Then, when he answers, his voice is quieter than before, and Sehun hates that he doesn’t know what it means. “What Tao does with the gang is his business,” he says, watching his own fingers play with his bedspread before he shoots Sehun an urgent glance. “Just don’t let yourself get involved.”

Again, Sehun just drops on his back on Kyungsoo’s bed, with a strangled sigh this time. “Let myself get involved,” he mutters against his hands. “We kissed. Man. We kissed like no tomorrow, and I’m crushing so bad, and he’s a… Whatever you’d call that. Oh, god. Fuck.”

“Jongin,” Kyungsoo reminds him, almost gently this time. Sehun just offers a loud whimper and turns on his side. Kyungsoo watches him like an ant under his magnifying glass in the sun. “Maybe you should solve your old problems before creating new ones.”

Of course he should. But if he always listened to Kyungsoo, he wouldn’t be whining on his bed right now.

“What exactly is the new problem, anyway?” Kyungsoo asks, while Sehun buries his face in his blanket. “Tao being involved with illicit activities while he kisses you? You not being able to just ignore that because you’re such an extremely honest person?”

His guest mumbles something vaguely sounding like “stop making fun of me, asshole”, and kicks him blindly. A second after that Sehun feels Kyungsoo lean over him, and then his smartphone leaves his pants pocket.

Sehun sits back up immediately. “What are you doing?” he spits. “Wait, how do you know my code? Hey!”

Luckily he knows better than to try and take his phone back. His fingers probably wouldn’t survive that, so Sehun just sits there, frustrated, watching Kyungsoo tap away on his touchscreen. Eventually he’s just scrolling with a frown, then he looks back at him.

“Who’s Kai?”

“Jongin,” Sehun answers. “It’s his nickname, I dunno. Just like I saved you as Dyo. Wait, what are you doing? Don’t text him! _Kyungsoo!_ ”

Sehun’s already seriously contemplating throwing his physical wellbeing overboard to tackle Kyungsoo and make him let go of his phone, but thankfully that’s not necessary. Kyungsoo holds it out to him so he can look at the display, with his and Jongin’s KakaoTalk conversation opened and a message typed out, but not sent yet. Sehun almost sighs with relief before reading it.

“It’s just a suggestion,” says Kyungsoo, while Sehun feels like he doesn’t have a choice. “But do something. You’ll feel lighter, and Jongin doesn’t deserve all this crap.”

Quietly, Sehun stares at the draft, then he takes his smartphone back and rereads it a couple of times before starting to change some minor details to make it sound more like him. He knows Kyungsoo is watching him like a hawk, and he also notices the content expression in his eyes when he sends off the message. Sehun runs both hands over his face. “I hope he won’t read it before tomorrow morning,” he mutters. He presses his lips together. “I’m gonna miss him.”

Kyungsoo doesn’t say anything. It’s better for everyone that Sehun doesn’t know what that means. For a while they just sit on his bed in silence, then Sehun says he doesn’t want to leave yet, and that he’s nervous, and he laughs and can see in Kyungsoo’s face that he’s not buying into the humor.

But it’s alright. Kyungsoo makes him food and spreads a mattress next to his bed and Sehun stays until morning, and under Kyungsoo’s watchful gaze he reads Jongin’s answer to his message telling him they have to meet up and he has something to tell him. His stomach hurts when he leaves. He doesn’t know why everyone always says it feels good to do the right thing.

  


Kyungsoo waits until Sehun texts him in the evening.

“It’s over,” he writes.

 _Good_ , Kyungsoo thinks. “I’m sorry, but I’m sure it’s better that way,” he writes.

Then he hesitates, for a long time, but he likes Jongin, he’s not just in love, he really actually likes him and he worries about him, he thinks, and it’s not like he’s immediately driving over to his place to make out with him, it’s not like that. It’s perfectly harmless. He has to tell himself that.

“You alright?” he sends to Jongin.

Then he opens Tao’s contact, and doesn’t hesitate at all.

“Don’t screw it up,” Kyungsoo writes.

  


He keeps glancing at his phone in the course of the next few hours, but Jongin still hasn’t read his text. When he wakes up the next morning, he has, according to his messenger, but he hasn’t answered. Kyungsoo knows he has every right not to, and no obligation to want anything to do with him, but he still has to take a few deep breaths.

When he comes back from work the next day, Jongin calls him. Kyungsoo searches for his keys with his free hand, which proves to be difficult because he’s terribly nervous all of a sudden.

“Hello?” he greets.

“Hey,” says Jongin. He sounds calm. Composed. Kyungsoo wishes he could see him. “I wanted to ask if you have time this week, and if you want to meet up. For coffee, or something.”

The key is in Kyungsoo’s hand, and he stares at it, breathing. “Sure,” he says.

“Just you and me,” Jongin adds, before he can continue. “I mean, I had fun with the three of you, but… Well I guess you’ve heard of it already.”

“Yeah,” Kyungsoo says quietly. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright.” He can hear the smile in his voice and wonders if he needs a hug. “I’d seen it coming.”

This startles Kyungsoo. He closes the door behind him and glances out the window and thinks maybe everyone who knows Sehun could have seen it coming. He just thought he’s the only one who really does. He never thought twice about Jongin understanding him on a deeper level too, and even now he’d rather forget that thought.

“Really?” he can hear himself ask. “Why?”

At the other end of the phone, Jongin hesitates. “I’ll tell you over coffee,” he says.

They meet up the same evening; Kyungsoo looks tired, Jongin doesn’t. Jongin looks the way he sounded. Composed, pulled together. Still Kyungsoo wants to hug him, but he just smiles at him warmly instead and says he’ll pay for the coffee.

As soon as they sit, Jongin wraps his hands around the paper cup and asks, “Is he dating Tao yet?”

Kyungsoo’s cup is halfway to his mouth as he blinks at him over the rim. “No,” he says slowly, somewhat truthfully. At least to him, nobody has said anything that’d make it official. Really it’s just a matter of time, but he doesn’t have to tell Jongin that.

“Hm,” Jongin says with an almost defeated looking smile that’s aimed at his coffee and not at him, then he shrugs. “I bet he will soon. That’s why I’ve seen it coming. And that’s why I wanted to meet with you, if anything, not with him or Tao. I … like Tao, I actually think he likes me too, but… There’s always been something weird between us. I think he and I and Sehun, we’d all felt it. So I wasn’t surprised. Maybe it’s better like this. Now we can all be happier.”

He’s still not looking at Kyungsoo, drinking quietly instead, and Kyungsoo doesn’t know what to feel first. He feels sorry for Jongin. All he can think about is that he wishes him everything good in this stupid universe, and that he doesn’t deserve all this, that he’s the last damn person that should be sitting in a café like this, all contrite and thinking about a breakup. But at the same time he wonders if nobody noticed _him_. Sehun and Tao were in the air somehow – Tao was jealous of Jongin, Jongin was jealous of Tao, Sehun was torn between them, and you could notice here and there, Kyungsoo knows that. And maybe he himself just disappeared in the confusion. Maybe those three were so caught up in each other that nobody noticed that Kyungsoo was jealous, too. And, really, he thinks, it’s better that way.

But if anybody had noticed, maybe now he could just lay his cards on the table instead of watching Jongin’s beautiful hands and telling himself that not even Do Kyungsoo is enough of an asshole to take advantage of Jongin and Sehun’s situation this early.

“I’m sorry,” Kyungsoo says again. He’s not sure what he’s sorry for.

Jongin makes a dismissive hand gesture. “I’ll live,” he says, with a smile that makes Kyungsoo feel like his insides are melting into a pleasant puddle in his chest. “There’s no hard feelings between us or anything. I think we need our space right now, but it’s not like we never want to see each other again.” He grins and finally looks at him. “I hope he won’t be mad that I’m meeting with his best friend.”

Kyungsoo snorts, maybe a bit too enthusiastically. “Eh, we’re all grown adults,” he says. “Honestly I was surprised you wanted to meet me at all.”

“I like you,” says Jongin. Kyungsoo burns his entire mouth with coffee. “I mean, I like you all, but you were the one who texted me right after the breakup – which was very kind of you, by the way.”

“Haha, yeah,” Kyungsoo forces out. He wonders why Jongin isn’t growing suspicious. He also wonders if his crush could be any more obvious, or if he should just get it printed on a shirt until he gets it.

He doesn’t tell him anything. Of course he doesn’t tell him anything. Maybe one day he will, when he and Sehun aren’t a current topic anymore and everything has calmed down a little, even if one part of him, the cold rational part that helps with his friends’ problems, hopes that he won’t be in love with him anymore by then. That everything will just blow over without anything happening, so he can continue living his life without having to explain all this to Sehun, and without fearing that in reality, Jongin isn’t interested in him at all.

He wants to be friends with him at least. Jongin tells him that over coffee, while Kyungsoo’s heart acts like he’s running a marathon, and he has to act calm and cool to tell him he’d like that.

It’s a nice meeting, even if Kyungsoo permanently struggles with himself and the nervous fluttering in his chest, but it’s worth it to him. Everything would be worth it. He accompanies Jongin to the subway station before crashing into his bed in his apartment, tired out from emotions and guilt towards his best friends, forgets to take off his socks and dreams about running away to London with Jongin.

  


Tao sounds happy, at the other end of the phone. At the beginning he was holding back, and was sincerely asking about Jongin, but after Kyungsoo told him that Jongin seemed pretty positive and like he was doing well, all things considered, he was unstoppable. He’s excited, and happy, and you could hear it in every word. Kyungsoo doesn’t mind interrupting that great mood for a second.

“You’re not pulling him into your business, Tao, are you?”

“What?”

“He told me you showed him something. And he was scared, which I, personally, think is very good. Don’t let him slip in there with you.”

“Of course not.” Tao sounds offended, but Kyungsoo doesn’t mind. “I mean… I did want to leave myself. We’ve talked about this before, I just wasn’t … ready, you know?”

“I know,” Kyungsoo says quietly and Tao hurries to continue.

“But I think if Sehun and I are… Well, if it’s going to be something serious, then – then maybe I can leave. For him, and stuff. So both of us will be safer.”

“Absolutely,” Kyungsoo says, sitting at his desk doodling wolves on notepads. “I don’t know how you managed to stay for as long as you did anyway.”

Tao just gives a nervous laugh. Then it’s quiet for a few seconds, which makes Kyungsoo able to guess the answer himself, so he decides to change the topic.

“So you’re not officially a thing yet, are you?” he asks casually. “Since you said it’s nothing serious so far?”

“Yes, well – no idea.” The next laugh is nervous in a completely different way, a better way. “We kissed twice, and I take his hand when nobody looks, but we haven’t really talked about it. I want to, though, and soon. Talk about it, I mean. Tell him I want to be with him. I’ll see him the day after tomorrow.”

Kyungsoo smiles at his notepad. “Good,” he says. “You do that.”

  


When his phone rings two days later and he sees Tao’s name on the display screen, obviously he expects good news. And why wouldn’t he? Sehun has been crushing on him since forever, Kyungsoo can’t imagine him saying no. He assumes that Tao is about to tell him how well everything went, how happy he is with Sehun, and that the three of them should meet up again soon and throw a party.

When he hears Tao sob on the other end, he feels his entire chest tightening.

“Tao?” he asks. “Tao, what happened?”

“I’m so sorry,” is the only thing he hears. “I’m so – I’m so sorry…”

“Shhh, slow down, Tao.” Kyungsoo swallows, but of course he stays calm, he’s always calm, he’s the calm friend. “What’s going on?”

“They found me… I, they… We’ve been in trouble with these guys, the gang I mean, and they found me, and Sehun was with me, and –”

Tao’s sobbing is so loud that it makes Kyungsoo think something inside him is going to rip in two, but there’s also a cold shudder running down his spine. What he got from Tao’s chaos sounds like the exact thing he’s been fearing for years. “Are you two alright?” he asks. His voice quivers.

“I’m at the hospital,” Tao manages to get out, and Kyungsoo can hear him choke.

“What about Sehun?” The cold has reached his stomach. He’s clutching the phone so tightly his hand is starting to hurt.

“Kyungsoo… Kyungsoo, I’m so sorry –”

“Where is Sehun?”

“Sehun’s dead.”


	2. Chapter 2

Tao doesn’t show up to the funeral. Kyungsoo holds Jongin in his arms until his collar is wet, and only cries a little bit, while nobody watches. People tell stories about Sehun that Kyungsoo finds don’t sound like him, and Jongin’s snorts next to him tell him that only they really knew him, and he hates thinking about him in past tense, he hates knowing that he will never see him again. Sehun will never call him again and unload his shitty problems on him, never again will they enjoy their days off in cafés, never again will he knock on his door, and Kyungsoo still had so much to tell him, he would have listened to so much more of his sorrows if only that had somehow kept him alive longer.

“I have to go,” Jongin says, muffled, sniffling. Kyungsoo can feel his warm but irregular breath on the side of his neck, and his chest quakes beneath his fingers.

“Will you get home safe?” Kyungsoo asks quietly. “You didn’t come by car, did you?”

“My sister drives me home,” says Jongin, and Kyungsoo hugs him close one last time before letting go.

“Take care,” he says. _Text me when you get home_ , he wants to add, but maybe that’s not his place.

Still he looks after him until he’s actually watching him slide into the passenger side of a car, and feels a little more at ease. Kyungsoo stays at the cemetery and stares at the fresh grave, until everything inside him hurts and Sehun’s parents are frowning at him, then he leaves too. He stands around numbly in the subway station, and decides to not go home.

Kyungsoo rings the doorbell three times before he resorts to knocking. “Tao,” he calls. “Tao, I know you’re in there. We both know you can barely leave the house. Let me in. Tao.”

Nothing. Frustrated, Kyungsoo stares at the spyhole. Then an image sneaks into his head, a vague idea, fear, the knowledge what grief can do to people, what people can do to themselves sometimes if you leave them alone, and he reaches into his pants pocket and crouches before the door and just picks the lock.

It’s a skill he usually keeps quiet about, but with friends like his he has to be prepared, he tells himself. As the door swings open, Tao sits in his wheelchair in the hallway and stares at him blankly. Kyungsoo’s gaze flickers to his legs, both in casts, then back to his face.

“You alright?” he asks, trying not to feel out of place.

For a second Tao looks like he’s going to puke. Then he shrugs, turns around and wheels himself into his bedroom, but at least he jerks his head a motion that tells Kyungsoo to follow him.

“I couldn’t,” he says quietly, after Kyungsoo has closed the door behind him. Tao isn’t looking at him. “I couldn’t go there. Listen to these people, and look at them and the… the grave, I – I tried, Kyungsoo. I put on clothes and everything.” He gestures to his adequate black outfit, and Kyungsoo knows that since Sehun’s death, Tao only very rarely dresses himself, or even moves out of the bed. “I made it to the elevator outside. That’s it. I couldn’t.”

“It’s alright,” Kyungsoo says. His throat feels like the walls are made of sandpaper. “You … didn’t miss much, really. You can still visit his grave once you’re better. I… I don’t think he would have minded.”

It was a dangerous thing to say, and a bitter smile dances over Tao’s face. He stares at his own lap, and Kyungsoo feels lost standing around in his room. He doesn’t want to sit. Nothing about this is comfortable.

“I’m so sorry,” Tao whispers against his hand. Kyungsoo knows he’s not talking about his absence during the funeral, and a familiar cold is spreading in his stomach. He doesn’t say anything, and next moment he wishes he had, because Tao looks at him and his face is nothing but a painful expression of understanding. “You don’t forgive me,” he observes. His voice breaks, but it’s been doing that a lot lately. “It’s my fault, and you don’t forgive me.”

“You didn’t shoot him,” Kyungsoo says hoarsely. He’s dodging, he knows he’s dodging, he just doesn’t know if he’s doing it for Tao or for himself.

Tao snorts, and there’s that bitter smile again, and he looks like the embodiment of despair as his gaze sweeps across the room and still ends up on Kyungsoo, and Kyungsoo _wants_ to forgive him, he wants nothing more than to hug him and tell him they’ll be alright somehow and that it’s not his fault, but he hasn’t touched Tao even once since Sehun’s death, and he doesn’t know if they’ll ever be alright again, and it is Tao’s fault.

For a moment, Kyungsoo just calmly breathes in and back out. He shouldn’t do it, he tells himself. He should hold his tongue. Leave, if he has to. But he shouldn’t do it.

He does it anyway.

“You could have left,” he says. Already his voice is louder than before, and there’s a kind of coldness to it that surprises Kyungsoo, and doesn’t surprise Tao. “And you knew. You just didn’t leave because you were too much of a coward, even though we were all constantly telling you that we’d help you. We would have helped you, Tao, _all of us_. But you did the opposite!” Kyungsoo takes in how good it feels to raise his voice. To shove his grief away and let out all his anger, because he _deserves_ it, even though Tao seems to shrink more with each word, but he had it coming. Kyungsoo stares at him and makes wide gestures while he talks, and he doesn’t care if the neighbors can hear him. “You stayed, and why? I don’t fucking know! Once every two damn days you pissed your pants at my place because you wanted out, and once every two damn days I told you to leave, and instead you stay and _pull Sehun in with you! Our Sehun_ , our _friend_ , but I guess you didn’t fucking care, because it was more _convenient_ this way, and of course _you_ didn’t shoot him, but without you this would have _never happened!_ If you just had the balls, Sehun would still be alive, and they wouldn’t have kneecapped you, and Jongin wouldn’t have had to cry, and I –”

He stops. He breathes in, out. Heavily. His chest is tight and hurts, and Tao’s crying, but he’s not even looking away. Tao is crying and looking him directly in the face, and he regrets, Kyungsoo knows he regrets, he can see it in every pore, but it’s not enough. It’s not enough.

“You should have left when Yifan left,” Kyungsoo says. His voice is calm again, but everything else trembles. “He would have helped you. We would have helped you. Han is doing so well by now, but you…” He pushes out a breath, runs a hand through his hair. He can’t bear to look at Tao any longer, looking at the floor is better right now, even if he can still see his casts on the footrests of his wheelchair, and it’s all so unnecessary. “It was all so unnecessary,” he says quietly. “None of this had to happen.”

“Kyungsoo…” Tao says. Kyungsoo turns away. Kyungsoo leaves. He doesn’t want to hear another apology, he’s tired of it. He can hear wheels squeaking behind him, but only for a second. Tao doesn’t follow him.

When he reaches his apartment complex, it’s dark and rainy. In the cold light of the tubular lamps in the hallway, Jongin waits in front of his apartment door.

“You’re in Sehun’s address book,” he answers the question Kyungsoo didn’t get to ask. He briefly wonders why Sehun owned something like an address book, then he remembers that he wanted to send him a postcard from Edinburgh forever ago. He forgot, in the end.

Quietly Kyungsoo invites him into his apartment, and for a second he automatically wants to go to his bedroom so they can sit on his bed and talk, but he only did that with his two best friends, one of whom is dead now, the other crying in his wheelchair.

He leads Jongin to the kitchen. “Are you…” he begins, then stops himself, because he already knows Jongin isn’t alright. “…How are you?”

Jongin shoots a glance towards the chairs around the table, but apparently doesn’t want to sit. He shrugs, and tries to meet Kyungsoo’s gaze. “Okay,” he says. “I wanted to ask you something.”

The knot is back in Kyungsoo’s stomach. He doesn’t let it show, as always, just raises his brows. “Alright,” he says.

Jongin’s long fingers press against his table like he’s trying to rub at smudges. Kyungsoo watches them, then his pretty lips, the way he presses them together and frowns in search for words. Part of Kyungsoo already knows what he’s going to ask.

“Sehun once told me,” Jongin begins, and Kyungsoo wishes he didn’t sound so pained when saying his name, “that you had this rumor going around at your school, about you. And that you never denied it.”

Kyungsoo’s sigh is barely audible. He rubs his eyes. He can barely grasp that Sehun’s funeral was only a few hours ago. It feels like much longer.

When he looks back up, Jongin’s gaze has grown harder, dark almost, and Kyungsoo regrets not answering right away. “They said the shooting probably had to do with gangs,” Jongin says, sharply. “Tell me this didn’t have anything to do with you. You didn’t know about this, did you? You couldn’t have stopped it. Right?”

Kyungsoo looks him in the eyes, and he feels tired and exhausted, and Jongin looks like he wants to hear the wrong answer so he finally has someone to blame, someone to aim his anger at. And Kyungsoo thinks he isn’t even all that wrong. He knew about Sehun’s problems. He probably could have stopped it, had he warned Sehun about Tao, or had he offered more help to Tao, had he been there for him more when he wanted to leave. Surely he could have done something to prevent it.

“When Tao and I were younger,” he says, and has to clear his throat, “we met some, let’s say, sketchy people. I backed out soon enough. I was never really part of it. Tao stayed. I never denied the rumors, mostly because that made them focus on me and nobody suspected Tao.” He notices Jongin’s eyes going wide at the sound of Tao’s name. He feels twice as heavy as this morning. “Tao wanted to quit,” he adds quietly. He himself might not be able to forgive him, but he doesn’t have to make others mad at him too. “He’s… He’s not doing so well.”

For a second it seems like the world around them has just stopped turning, and they look at each other, and they grieve, and then Jongin lets himself drop on Kyungsoo’s kitchen chair and rests his elbows on the table and his face in his hands, and Kyungsoo feels his insides quake and tears burn in his eyes, but he doesn’t cry. He doesn’t cry.

“I’m sorry,” Jongin says. Kyungsoo doesn’t want to hear any apologies for the next twenty years. “That I … suspected you, or whatever, I… I just wanted someone to… God –”

“Wanna get drunk?” says Kyungsoo.

When Jongin raises his head his eyes look wet, but at least now he’s surprised instead of sad. “I,” he says, gulps, and then something changes in his posture, like he’s giving up, and like it’s good. A smile darts across his face. “Sure.”

Kyungsoo doesn’t drink often, but they put Sehun under the earth in a coffin today, and he made Tao cry, who might never be able to walk without pain again, and he’s still terribly in love with Jongin, who probably feels shaken enough himself, because it’s weird having to grieve over an ex-boyfriend. Today they drink well, and they drink a lot, and they tell stories about Sehun neither of them have heard before, and some they already know by heart, they drink a toast to him so they can finally allow themselves to change the topic, and they laugh and lie in each other’s arms, and Kyungsoo can smell the alcohol everywhere on Jongin, mixed with perfume and shampoo, and he can feel the way Jongin shudders in his embrace as Kyungsoo breathes in deeply.

They pull away simultaneously, but only half an inch, and stare into each other’s eyes, but Kyungsoo doesn’t make it very long and lowers his gaze to Jongin’s lips, and Jongin immediately leaning closer to him seems to make the air around them even warmer, and he puts both hands on Jongin’s cheeks and closes his eyes and just lets go, because he’s woozy and nothing matters, and Jongin’s lips on his feel so goddamn good, like they should have been there all his life.

Without hesitation Jongin reciprocates and Kyungsoo feels hotter still, but he doesn’t let it keep him. One of his hands cards through Jongin’s hair, grabs the back of his head as he tries to deepen their kiss more and more, crashes their lips together again and again, until he can feel the blood pump through them and heat surge in his lower abdomen. And Jongin doesn’t seem to feel any different because Kyungsoo can feel his warm fingers on the hem of his shirt, then on his stomach, his sides, and Kyungsoo wants it so bad, but he’s not drunk enough.

He’s not drunk enough, because he’s the reasonable friend. The one who knows that drinking might feel good today, but shouldn’t be overdone. The one who knows that Jongin isn’t actually into him, but just looking for a distraction from his grief. The one who knows that he deserves distraction, but not this kind, because tomorrow morning they’ll both feel bad. He wants nothing more than to press Jongin up against him and feel his skin on his own, to kiss more than just his lips, but he is the reasonable friend, the one who always keeps everyone from doing stupid things, so his hands wander to Jongin’s shoulders and he gently pushes him away, while he tries not to cry.

 

He and Jongin don’t talk a lot. Sometimes they text each other, ask how it’s going, and with time their replies get more positive, but also rarer. Kyungsoo guesses that’s fine. Jongin deserves a life after him. A life after Sehun. A life after drunken kisses at his dead ex-boyfriend’s best friend’s kitchen table. Jongin mentions he does a lot of things differently now, and that he’s getting dogs, and Kyungsoo is happy for him.

Kyungsoo doesn’t do many things differently.

His friends don’t come to seek his advice anymore. Tao never calls him first. Kyungsoo still asks if he’s doing alright and if he needs help with anything, but he always says no. After a while Tao stops picking up his phone.

It’s quiet around Kyungsoo a lot, and he doesn’t like it, but doesn’t really want to do anything about it. He works a lot, sleeps a lot, cooks a lot of good food he can’t eat on his own, and sometimes he cries in the shower. But it’s alright. He’s alright.

Kyungsoo doesn’t have the willpower to change out of his embarrassing pajama pants when someone knocks on his door late at night. That changes once he opens it.

His gaze flickers from the crutches Tao is leaning on to the bulge of a weapon under his jacket, to the tired but determined look in his eyes.

“I found him,” Tao says. “The man who shot Sehun.”

Kyungsoo thinks that he didn’t have to do that. He also thinks that he still appreciates it. He thinks a lot of things at the same time, but only one thing comes out of his mouth.

“Do you need help with the body?”

Something that almost could have looked like a smile ghosts over Tao’s face. “No,” he says quietly. “I’m all done.”

Kyungsoo nods curtly, hesitates. He wants to hug him. Instead he just shifts from one foot to the other. “Do you want to come in?” he asks warily.

For a moment he actually has hope, but Tao shakes his head. Now he really is smiling, but it doesn’t feel good, because he turns away at the same time. Kyungsoo watches him quietly from his doorframe, watches him limp through the dark corridor towards the elevator.

He never sees him again.


	3. Epilogue

He’s better. It’s been months, and he’s better.

He still thinks about it a lot, of course he does, and he also still visits Sehun at the cemetery. Sometimes when it’s late and he can’t sleep, he scrolls through old conversations with him, or with Tao, or with Jongin. He’s been meaning to delete them for a while, but he never does.

He goes for drinks with colleagues sometimes, now. They can’t replace them, nobody will ever be able to replace them, but at least they distract him. They’re nice people.

It’s alright.

It’s not the best, but it’s alright.

He doodles on the back of a check a customer left here when the door to the salon opens and the cheesy bells above it alert everyone else, too. Kyungsoo looks up, and for the first time in his life he drops a pen in sheer surprise. His heart jolts uncomfortably, but the quick beats afterwards feel almost warm, and good, and his lips stretch into a smile.

To be fair, Jongin is just as surprised as he is. For a moment they just stare at each other, then Kyungsoo pushes himself past the counter, approaches him and hugs him, and Jongin hugs him back, even if his hands are full of leashes, and Kyungsoo feels a way he hasn’t felt in months.

They let go of each other, look over each other, laugh. Jongin is the first to talk.

“You’re a _dog groomer_?”

Kyungsoo grins and nods, while Jongin’s three dogs are sniffing his hands already trying to get his attention. “Is that so surprising?”

“I’m just saying – dog groomer! All the rumors about…” Jongin doesn’t end his sentence, but neither does he give them enough time to let it ruin the mood. “…And instead you work at a dog salon.”

With a shrug, Kyungsoo leads him and his dogs to the customer seats, and just sits with them. He’s glad that Jongin didn’t just leave. Glad he even still wants to talk to him. “How are you?” he asks softly.

“Not that bad,” Jongin says lightly. “My therapist said I should treat myself. But I’d rather treat these three troublemakers.”

“I’m sure they appreciate it,” Kyungsoo says contently. Content, yes. Jongin sits right in front of him and isn’t about to leave, and they talk and look at each other, just like that, like it’s perfectly easy, and he’s content, at least for now.

He and Jongin don’t stop talking while Kyungsoo works. It almost feels like they’re old friends that just happened to bump into each other, like they never tried to fight a dark chapter of their lives together and failed, and sometimes they touch each other when they talk, and laugh, and exchange new phone numbers, and make plans to meet up later. And it’s good.

It’s better than alright.

Jongin asks if he’s heard from Tao and he feels sick as he shakes his head, and also as they visit Sehun’s grave together, but this time he is the one getting hugged until Jongin’s collar is wet, and it’s better than alright.

It’s better than alright when he wakes up next to him in the morning, and maybe, Kyungsoo thinks, maybe after all his self-denial, just this one time he deserves to get what he wants.


End file.
